Sun Will Shine
by YIWT
Summary: Takes place some time after Endgame. Thor's feeling a little nostalgic and asks to borrow the time machine. (I don't like what they did with Loki in Infinity War. This is my fix.)
1. Chapter 1

Thor looked around, squinting against the brightness of high noon, and tried to get his bearings. The field was the right place – big and open, with one enormous dying tree in the center, half destroyed by old lightning.

When he approached the tree, he knew at once that he'd gotten the day right too. Because from inside the tree there were panicked grunts and soft curse words – the sounds of a ten-year-old boy who had climbed in somehow and now couldn't get out. A boy whose brother had searched diligently for an hour, then decided that hide and seek wasn't that much fun after all, and gone in for lunch without him.

This close to his prize, Thor wasn't inclined to be delicate. He put a fist through the tree at once, ripped a hole with his bare hands, and smiled at the terrified peaked little face inside. "Hi there!"

"Um... hi?"

"Come on out." Thor ripped the hole wider and helped the boy emerge.

"I _wasn't _stuck in there."

_Yes you were. You were stuck for thirty hours, and too proud to call for help. If Odin hadn't found you by magic tomorrow, you would probably have stayed until you starved. _

Thor gave his best smile. "Of course not. But I just wanted to talk to you for a moment."

The boy's eyes darted a thousand places in a second. "Talk to _me_? Do you know who I am?"

"Mm-hm. You're Loki. Son of Odin, brother of Thor. A prince of Asgard."

Loki nodded. Chin raised. "That's right. Who are you?"

"I'm..." He took a deep breath. He had planned to tell the truth, because he'd been unable to concoct a lie that was even remotely plausible, but when the time came he felt a little silly. "I'm Thor. Your brother. From the future."

Loki blinked. Stepped back and looked him over again – more carefully this time. Then burst out laughing. "Very funny. Who are you _really_?"

"No, really. I really am Thor. How do you think I found you? I remember this game," he insisted, when the boy only made more incredulous faces. "You _were _stuck in the tree, you were stuck until tomorrow afternoon, nobody could find you until Odin got involved. What? What are you looking at?"

"You're not Thor."

"I am."

"Stop lying to me. You are not."

"I _am_!"

"Prove it," Loki shot suddenly. "Come here."

Thor saw the glint of knife in his hand. Where had _that _come from? "You want to fight me?"

"What?" Loki blinked. "Fight you? Maybe you're Thor after all; I don't know any other blonds this dumb."

Thor squinted up at the sun and tried not to strangle him. "Well there's no mistaking who _you _are; I don't know any other shrimps this nasty."

The boy looked, if anything, nastier.

Thor tried again. "Loki, when I was ten it was fun to pound you into the ground, but right now I'm really not in the mood. Can we have a truce?"

Loki licked his lips. "First come here and kneel down – I want to see that scar on your head."

"Oh. Why didn't you _say _that?" Thor let the boy shave a spot behind his ear until the old cut showed. "See?"

Loki stepped back. "All right: I believe you. You're Thor from the future. You're old and-..." He bit his lip but couldn't hide a mean Loki smile. "...And not doing much fighting these days. Fine. Why did you come here?"

"I came to fulfill a promise."

"What promise?"

"Yours. To me. You said-..." He found himself choking up a little suddenly; he tried to swallow past it. To see Loki alive again, a child again, innocent, was affecting him even more than he'd expected. "You said the sun would shine on us again. And I thought-... this was the strongest memory I had of us in the sunshine, playing here this day, and I thought-..."

Loki was frowning at him. "Did something happen to me?" he guessed. "In the future?"

Thor nodded.

"And my last words to you were... _that_?"

Thor nodded again.

Loki was shaking his head. "That doesn't make sense – I don't even _like _the sun. There's a reason we hardly ever play outdoors, Thor. It burns my skin and I hate it. Why would I want to...?"

Thor frowned. It hadn't even occurred to him that Loki's words might be more than they seemed, though in retrospect, it was in keeping with everything he knew of his brother.

"Maybe I was trying to tell you something," Loki suggested. "Some way to save me, maybe?"

The thought of Thanos, and the slaughter, was too heavy for this bright day. He shook his head. "No, it was... it was already too late. There's nothing I could have done."

"Well- but-, but you can time travel!" Loki was agitated now, bouncing. "You can go back and save me before it happens! Come on. _I'd_ do it for _you_!"

"I'm not- I'm not _unwilling_," he sputtered. "Loki, I would do anything for you, you know that. I always would have, and I still would. I love you. Even if I wasn't always good at showing it."

Loki stilled. "I know. I'm a child, not an idiot." He stood quiet a moment, frowning thoughtfully. "So I got old too?" he asked at last. "And also...?" He sketched a belly with his hands.

"No- it's- I mean-..." Thor couldn't believe he had expected anything kinder than this. Loki had _never _been otherwise than mean and terrible. "I haven't been myself since our defeat, brother," he muttered. "For five years I sat and... just..."

"_WHAT? _I've been dead for _five years _and you're still just _sitting _there!?" He almost shrieked it.

"I haven't- I mean-..." He sighed. "Can we please just be together for a few moments? That's really what I wanted, was-"

"No! No we can't! You need to fix this right now!" The boy took a deep breath, scowled down at the ground. Thor could see his mind working. "You need to go back to where you came from," he decided, "To the future except _before I am dead, _when things first started to go off the rails, and find out what my plan is. Then go on to the moment where I die, _and stop it. _Understand?"

_It doesn't work that way. _But Loki was a child, and understandably agitated; there would be no reasoning with him. "Fine. All right. I'll go. Can I at least have a hug first?"

Loki made a face. "I don't know you. I don't hug people I don't know."

"Well... can I have _something_?"

"Like what? Oh! You can have this. A sign." The boy smiled – shy, suddenly. "I've thought about time travel," he explained, "And I wanted a way to recognize myself I ever did it, so, I have a sign. Use it when you come to me, and then I'll trust you."

So clever, even as a child. "Show me."

The boy raised a hand, two fingers in a V, and curled them. Then crossed his fists over his chest, then opened his arms to his sides violently.

_One day that gesture will come with knives, _Thor wanted to tell him, but instead just practiced the salute seriously until it met with the boy's approval.

Loki still wouldn't hug him in the end, nor sit and enjoy the sunshine with him, but the hope he'd offered was more than consolation. "Thank you, brother," he said at the last.

All Loki did was shoo him away. "Get going."

* * *

**TBC.**

**Sorry, but I just _can't _accept IW's beginning at face value. I was really hoping something would happen in Endgame to make it make sense. Since it didn't, I'm taking it upon myself to fix. :-) I have two more parts in mind so far, but who knows where this will end up.**

**Let me know what you think so far! **


	2. Chapter 2

Even after best, careful, lengthy efforts, even with his friends' help, Thor miscalculated by a few feet. This meant that instead of landing _on _the mountaintop he landed _beside _it, in thin air, and crashed to the ground below. Had to climb back up. He could hear the sounds of combat in the distance, of himself and Tony Stark meeting for the first time, but he couldn't stop to watch because he had more important things to do.

At the top of the mountain was his brother. "Loki," he called as soon as he summitted – even before he'd caught his breath.

Loki whipped around. "Thor-?" Scrambled to his feet. "Wait – who _are _you?"

"Hang on. Sorry. One second." Thor put his hands on his knees and tried to breathe deep. He hadn't remembered it being so _difficult _to climb a single Earth mountain. Perhaps time travel was more exhausting than he'd realized.

"All right," he said, when he could finally speak without wheezing. He stood up. "Hi. Yeah, no – you had it right the first time. It's me. Thor, son of Odin. From the future."

Loki looked him over, closely. Then laughed. "No."

The laughter stung. "Yes."

"No. _That_," even more derisive, a chin-jerk with curled lip "Is not my brother."

"Yes. Yes it is. Loki, come on." But he had come back to this moment – to this time when Loki had gone _off the rails_, when perhaps he could have helped, if only he'd been a little less self absorbed and a little more forgiving – for a reason. And that reason was to make peace, not to argue. "I'm sorry I dragged you out of an airplane," he led with. "And sorry I let you fall from the Bifrost, and sorry I was an ass to you for years, and sorry for everything else you're angry at me about. But this is important. Can we please talk?"

Loki looked at him for a long moment. Then glanced over his shoulder. "I suppose I've got nothing better to do whilst those meat-heads work out their problems down there, so." He resumed his seat. "Talk away."

Thor paced restlessly. "Something terrible has happened – to you – and I want to help."

But before he could go on, Loki interrupted. "Now, or then?"

Thor stopped. "What? What do you mean?"

"Ah. Never mind." Loki waved it away. "For a moment I thought you'd come to rescue me, that's all. But it's all right. I have a plan of my own. Go on."

"I _am _here to rescue you – from what happens in the future. Thanos kills you," he said bluntly.

Loki's grin flashed white in the murky light but was gone in half a second. "Color me surprised. He's nearly done it several times already."

"Already? You mean you've been fighting him?" How come he had never known?

Loki's eyes gleamed strangely. "No. I don't fight. Resistance really is futile. I've learned."

Thor was still sure he was missing something, but the past was past now and all he could care about was what to do in the future. For his brother – not this evil thing who was about to drop him from a helicarrier and then stab him in the belly. "Well in the future you have _un-_learned," he announced. "And we reconcile, and we fight him together."

"Oh? And how does that go for us?" Loki asked, polite and guileless.

Thor let out a sharp breath. _Would not _lose his temper. "I'm still trying to figure that out, actually," he said. "You said something to me. Just before he killed you. I think it may have been a message, an instruction of some kind, but I didn't understand it."

"So you came back to me for help. To this touching reunion with your dear little brother." He leaned back against his rock and laughed softly at the sky. "You must be truly desperate."

"Are you going to say that to me _every time _I ask you for something?" Thor snapped. "Gods! Why are you like this?"

"What?" Loki was frowning at him. "I've always been like this. Why are _you_?" He got to his feet, slowly. "You've changed. And I don't mean just that impressive belly – what _have _you been eating, by the way? – but something about you is... different. Very."

"Loss will do that to a person." Suddenly it seemed unjust that he should carry the loss all by himself, so he shared. "Our parents. Our people. Our home. My friends. My new friends. Him." A gesture down the mountain, in Stark's direction. "You."

Loki swallowed. "I know loss." Then he turned and clasped his hands behind his back. "So. What happens?"

"I told you. Thanos." Thor cleared his throat to get the emotion out of it. "He picks you up by the neck and squeezes the life out of you right in front of me. Immediately before that, you turn to me and swear that _the sun will shine on us again_. Which makes no sense," he added. "As Thanos had already defeated us and was obviously about to decimate our ship, and as you've pointed out, you hate the sun anyway. So. Tell me what you meant."

"Mm. Interesting." Loki bowed his head. "The sun will shine on us again. Hm. Had we recently had any encounters involving a sun?"

"Any... encounters...? No. No, it's nothing obvious, I-"

"How about with a _son_? Son, S-O-N, someone's male child. Maybe from another realm, a being with some kind of light or shimmer to him?"

Thor thought carefully. "No. Not that I can think of."

"The sun will shine," he repeated softly. "Hm." Shook his head. Finally he turned. "I'm afraid I have no idea what I was talking about," he said. "It's worth noting, though, that I've recently had my mind violently reworked. It's possible something's there and I just can't call it up."

"Had your...?" Thor looked him up and down. He looked a little sallow and sickly, sure, but did he mean Thanos had _done _something to him?

Loki waved it away. "Never mind. As I said, I have a plan. But as for _you, _I think you should go and ask me at a different time. Possibly a little further along in our future – maybe I'll know something then that I haven't yet learned now. I mean, there must be – what – fifteen years intervening?"

Did he really look to have aged _fifteen years_? That was no good for his vanity. Thor swallowed. "Something like that."

"All right, so." Loki waved at him. "Go get on with it. See you again in fifteen years."

_It doesn't work that way, Loki._ But he wasn't in a mood to try and explain concepts he didn't understand to someone who didn't seem to care about them, so he just nodded yes and went away.

* * *

**TBC.**

**Thank you guys for the comments & encouragement! I like Kid!Loki too, even if he's already a bit prickly. :-) **

**Next chapter we finally get to IW-era events.**

**Let me know what you think. I believe there are 2 more parts left now.**


	3. Chapter 3

This time Thor was very careful to go exactly where and when he meant. He arrived inside his ship, the night before Thanos came, inside the room where he and Loki were talking. They were standing side by side at the window. "I just… I can't believe it," Loki murmured.

"Mm." But his past self was not listening; Thor could tell.

"I mean… they told us Asgard was eternal. Do you remember?"

"Mm."

"All those years. All those stories. And now it's gone. The sun will never rise on Asgard again."

His jaw dropped. "There! There it is!" he shouted, and clambered out from his hiding place.

Both of the past Odinsons whirled to face him, squared up to fight. He ignored that. "There – listen, that's the words. That's exactly the words! Before he kills you!" In his excitement the explanation was all tumbling out of him in pieces, and of course nobody understood.

Past-Thor took charge. "Who are you?" he said, irritably. "And who kills whom? What are you, one of the madmen?"

Loki looked at him. "The madmen?"

"Heimdall made space in his camp for all the children and the sick and the mad," Past-Thor explained. "So although we didn't manage to salvage much of the army, we do have plenty of _them_."

He felt his face pull into a wince. "Was I really so intolerant?" he wondered aloud. Then assured Loki, who was staring at him: "_I _don't mind children, or sick or mad people. I play online with them all the time."

"What- what are you," Past-Thor sputtered again. "I don't understand."

"Yes you do," Loki said calmly, but without lowering his knives. "He's saying that he's you. From the future, presumably."

Thor nodded. "Exactly! You really always were the smart one."

"I'm not saying I _believe _you." Loki turned to his brother. "Make him prove it."

Thor laughed. "Not all of us are as paranoid as you, brother. I can't _prove it; _I don't have any signs or signals with myself. But I do remember yours." He performed the action that Loki had taught him during his visit into childhood, and waited.

Loki relaxed. "All right, Thor, stand down," he said to his brother. Past-Thor relaxed – reluctantly. He still looked wary and grizzled and completely ready for battle.

"Chill out, my friend," Thor advised his past self cheerfully. "It's no good to live like that. You've got to stop and smell the roses every now and then. Or whatever flowers they have out here."

But Past-Thor did not chill out. In fact he ignored him completely, and spoke instead to his brother. "You're telling me that _this,_" he said, "Is what I become – and that you're all right with it?"

"I'm not saying I'm all right with it," Loki said patiently, "Only that he must be here with my blessing; he'd have no way of knowing that gesture unless I taught it to him." And then, proving once and for all that Loki really did thrive on cruelty and the gratuitous infliction of pain, he added: "But of course I'm not _all right _with it. He's lazy, and an idiot. You're not nearly that bad normally." Then, turning to him: "Did you perhaps have a head wound or something… um, brother?" A smile so insincere and patronizing that he wondered if it might be a joke.

"I'm- I'm not-…" Thor swallowed. What could he say? He _was _lazy, if lazy meant sitting in his room wanting to do very little and doing nothing that he didn't want to do. And as for being an idiot… he disputed that, but it wasn't a name Loki hadn't called him before He shrugged it off. "No wounds worse than the usual. In any event, we don't have much time. Thanos will come here tomorrow and destroy this ship; we have to hurry. I need your help."

Past-Thor snorted. "Someone is coming to destroy our ship... and _y__ou _need _our_ help? Don't you have that backwards?"

Before Thor could answer, Loki nodded and agreed with his brother. "He's right. You just said we're in danger here - from Thanos. So why don't _y__ou _help _us?_ Go back in time another few decades, and kill Thanos in his cradle. I can assure you he deserves it."

Thor shook his head. "It doesn't work that way."

Loki seemed to be losing patience with him. "Well you're here, Thor, so there must be _something_ you can do."

Past-Thor had no patience at all. "Don't call him that! _I _am Thor!"

Loki hissed. "Seriously? Fine." Turning back to him. "You are hereby Bearded Thor for the duration of this conversation. Now sit down, Bearded Thor, and tell us what happens. Tell us everything."

Thor told them everything. _Everything_. His voice was hoarse by the end. Both brothers looked thoughtful, but of course it was Loki who finished processing first. "All right." Loki rose, stretched his legs, and went to pour some water. "You really did come from the future," he said.

"I did."

"Using... that getup." He gestured vaguely. "Suit, particles, wristwatch."

Thor nodded.

"And you did it because I said something strange to you."

"Yes. You said: _the sun will shine on us again._ What did you mean?"

Loki let out a slow breath. Muttered under his breath for a while, talking to himself, frowning. "Well the obvious answer," he said slowly, after a long time, "Given the conversation we were having when you arrived, would be that I wanted you to go back in time. I'd just finished saying that Asgard would never see another sunrise going forward, and then I told you we should go and see the sun. Clearly, _if I'd known you had the ability to time-travel,_ that is what I was directing you to do."

"But I _didn't _have the ability to time-travel, so how would either of us have known that?" Past-Thor said, and exactly the same moment Thor asked a much more basic question: "_Why_?"

Loki opted to answer the simpler question first. "Why did I tell you to go back in time? Oh, I don't know." Nasty and sarcastic, suddenly. "Perhaps because I'd just seen how utterly prepared you were to _sacrifice my life._" He stomped his way across the room as he ranted. "You left me to Ragnarok. To die in it. When I showed up on this damned ship you were honestly surprised to see me – weren't you. Don't lie." He looked from one iteration of his brother to the other. "Either of you."

Thor looked at his past self. Winced and shrugged.

Past-Thor did his best. "I did think it _possible_ that you might have made it," he said. Looked for support. "Right?"

"Oh, yes," Thor nodded big for emphasis. "It _was _possible. I mean, we know it was possible, because here you are!" He tried a smile. _Come on, brother. Look on the bright side! You're alive. (For the moment.)._

"You meant for me to die," Loki insisted quietly, "And you were fully ready to go on without me. Weren't you." He stopped dead and looked Thor square in the eyes.

Thor tried not to look at his past self again; exchanging glances like that made them look so _guilty._ "To be fair, it was your _third time _dying in recent years," he pointed out. "I'd come to sort of expect everything to-"

"We had no choice, Loki." The disaster was still fresh in Past-Thor's mind; he had risen and was moving around in his agitation. "You know as well as I did. We had no other way."

"_You_ thought up the suicide mission," Loki reminded, pacing just as restlessly, "And meant _me _to execute it, while you went on your merry way. Of _course _I didn't expect you to journey through time on your own initiative to save my life now."

"Loki…" He wasn't sure how to deny it.

But Loki's gaze was fixed on his other brother. "The only question, though, is _how _would I have known you had that option?" he murmured. "We've never discussed time travel. Never even hinted at it."

Past-Thor slapped his hand against the wall, irritably. "Fuck, Loki, I don't know. I don't know _what _you know. Maybe he's lying. Or maybe it meant nothing – maybe you took a head wound during the battle, and started spouting nonsense. It wouldn't be the first time."

"No," Thor insisted, firmly. "Your actions were deliberate. They looked, they _smelled, _like a Loki plan of old. Trickery and misdirection of some kind."

Loki shook his head. "My plans of old tended to _work, _Thor."

"Maybe this one did. Or would have, if I'd understood you better. I don't know."

"Mm." Loki altered the path of his pacing a little, so as not to collide with Past-Thor. Then, suddenly, he jerked and pointed. "Sh! Did you hear that?"

Thor whipped around – "Did I hear what?" – but there was nothing there. When he turned back he bumped smack into Loki, who was now right in front of him.

"Ow!" Loki rubbed himself, brushing spilled water from his clothes. "Watch where you're going, Bearded Thor. You take up a lot more space than you used to."

That was so unjust – _Loki _had bumped into _him, _not the other way around – that it took Thor a moment to formulate a response. "Loki…" Past-Thor warned, but it was already too late.

Loki's hands opened with a flash of blue. There was a billow of dark smoke... and he was gone.

Thor turned to his past self. "What the fuck?"

His past self was livid. "I don't know – it looks to me like Loki just used the Tesseract and _disappeared on us_," he snarled. "After deliberately colliding with you. Did he steal something?"

"Steal what?" Thor patted himself down. "I didn't bring a wallet, I have nothing here to-" His bracelet was gone. "Son of a bitch."

* * *

**TBC.**

**So. I've been trying to understand the time travel logic used in Endgame (thank you Rynfinity for helping!), and I _think _I understand how it _may _work, but it's entirely possible I am wrong. I think what I have comports with rules that aren't foreclosed by canon, so, I'm going with it.**

**Somehow though, during our conversation the story became longer (damn you Rynfinity for enabling!), and with the possibility for a hint of crack at the end, so I can no longer promise it's going to end in one or two more parts. I'm going to _try _and do it that short. But we'll see.**

Let me know what you think!


	4. Chapter 4

Thor didn't feel like thinking about what would happen if he didn't get his bracelet back before Thanos's arrival. His past self, though, couldn't seem to let the subject drop and couldn't relax. Finally, to stop him, Thor suggested: "Do we have any ale on board this ship?"

"Ale?"

"Or I'll settle for wine."

He set about drinking. It was only once his bender had fully run its course – once the ship was out of alcohol – that he realized he had been drinking a full week and _Thanos had not come_.

He would have asked his past self to theorize with him about why that might be, but his past self had long since lost patience with him and left him to drink alone in a maintenance closet.

He resolved to become functional again, so that he might be allowed to return to the main bedroom. He succeeded, but in the end got very little rest anyway: partway through the night, he was awoken by a flash of blue light and a smoky portal opening beside the bed.

"Loki!" he said – delighted, still, to see him. He rushed to turn lights on.

His past self was much less delighted: he climbed out of bed and shook Loki – hard. "Where did you go?" he demanded. "And- and what are you wearing?"

Ah, yes: Loki had returned to his old black and green leathers.

"Just illusion, brother," he explained. "I tired of seeing that Sakaarian garbage-suit when I looked in the mirror. Did you know, they make their clothing from synthetic-"

"Loki." Past-Thor cut him off. "I asked you where you went."

"Why, Earth, of course." Loki held up a fist, turning so his bracelet gleamed in the light. "To get one of these. Sorry it took so long – I expected that Stark could reverse-engineer a piece of his own technology in a couple of hours, but apparently it was a lot more complicated than I-"

"_Stark?_" the Thors said at the same time.

Thor blinked. "Stark is alive," he realized in wonder.

Past-Thor was must less entranced. "Why on earth would Stark help you?"

Loki smirked. "I borrowed some of Bearded Thor's information, and claimed to be his ally from the future. When I told him of his daughter he melted like a popsicle. Humans really are pathetic, they just-"

"Stark is a good friend," Thor interrupted. Lecturing was really not his bag these days, but some things just had to be said. "And he sacrificed everything to redeem our mistakes and repair what Thanos had done. If you harmed him…"

"I didn't harm him," Loki interrupted right back. Quiet and serious, finally. "All I wanted was the bracelet. And now I have one, so:" He took Thor's bracelet from his pocket, and held it out. "Here you go."

Thor snatched it back and re-fixed it to his suit.

"Now if _only _I had a suit and a vial!" Loki said insincerely. Then frowned as though in concentration. "Oh… wait." He waved a familiar gesture to clear away illusion, and suddenly his leathers were gone: he was wearing a red quantum space suit. "There." He held up a vial. "And there."

Thor's jaw dropped. "Where did you get Pym particles?"

"Pym. Obviously."

"But-..." He looked Loki over critically. The suit was ill-fitting, and seemed to be of Scott's older make rather than the Avengers' new white ones, but it was clearly the genuine article. "And you stole that suit."

"Well spotted."

"_Why?_"

"Why did I steal it? Because they aren't available in stores," Loki said innocently. "If they were, I'd have been able to just steal some money and buy one."

"No, I mean-" He sighed in exasperation. He'd forgotten how exasperating his brother could be.

Past-Thor took over. "He means," he said coldly, "Where the fuck do you think you're going? You are needed right here. You are needed to defend this ship."

Instantly Loki's jovial, teasing manner disappeared. "I _die _defending this ship," he barked. "While you apparently sit around and drink beer. Forgive me for exploring alternatives." He turned to Thor. "I'm coming back with you. Skipping over my own death. Your time machine is expecting a return journey from that wristwatch, and mine is benchmarked to match it. I see no reason why I can't come along."

Past-Thor raised his hand. "Uh, _I_ do," he said. "You belong _here._ What are you going to do – leave me?"

"What, the way _you're _always leaving _me_?"

"Loki." Thor walked over to him, reached out and gripped his shoulder. "That's not fair."

"It is." Loki twisted out of his grasp. "You wondered what my last words meant? It seems we've found the answer. We've found a way to rescue me. So let's say goodbye to this tomb, and get the hell out of here."

Thor bit his lip. _Was _this what Loki had meant for him to do? Go back in time, snatch his brother from the jaws of death, and return him to a world where he had never died – but half the universe had?

"Loki... you want to talk about _tomb, _let me tell you some things about the world I come from," he said. "The devastation that Thanos wrought was beyond description, but I can-"

"_No._" Past-Thor's eyes flashed suddenly – crackling with lightning. Bolts of it ran down his chest. "You two are _princes of Asgard_," he rumbled. "How _dare _you talk about abandoning her people in their hour of need!"

Thor glanced over at Loki... who was swallowing nervously, and wouldn't look at him. He didn't know what to say. _They aren't REAL people of Asgard, because I come from a different timeline _seemed harsh, and it might get him blasted if he was not careful. Who knew if Pym particles or a quantum suit would survive a lightning strike? He spread his hands, conciliatory. "Nobody said _abandon,_" he soothed.

"If you leave the Tesseract here," Past-Thor went on, "Thanos will come for it. We aren't prepared to fight him."

Loki frowned. "Fair point," he said. "I'm not looking to leave you in the lurch, brother. We'll kill Thanos first, before we go. I can assure you he deserves it."

Thor blinked. "What do you mean, _kill Thanos? _ I've told you what he is and what he can do. We can't just walk up to him and-"

"Yes we can." Loki was short and precise. "I open a portal. We three enter. We two distract him, while you, Bearded Thor, walk up to him and kill him where he stands."

Thor blinked. "Just... you want me to just, walk up to him and...?"

Past-Thor crossed his arms. "Aim for the head."

Thor stared at him. He could still feel Stormbreaker in his hands. Sinking into that evil, that _foul_-...

Loki interrupted him with a loud, pointed clearing of the throat. "Actually."

Thor frowned. Shook off his dark mood. "Actually what."

"Actually, I don't think aiming for the head is a good idea," Loki purred. "I think we're better off with… ahem. The opposite."

Thor looked at his past self for help. "The... opposite? You want me to go for his _feet_?"

Loki sighed. "No."

"Then...?"

Loki sighed again. Facepalmed. "I want you to use your suit. Shrink until you're invisible to the naked eye, until Thanos won't even know you're coming. Then you can walk right up to him, climb up his pant leg, and-..."

He explained the rest in gestures – complicated gestures, which Thor didn't understand. "Loki, I hate mimes. What are you saying?"

Loki cleared his throat and tried again. A circle with his fingers. His other hand jabbing into it. Fingers walking. Then both arms flung wide.

"Oh, gods. I got that." Past-Thor cleared his throat too. "Um. He's saying he wants you to... to… to murder him… from within."

Thor frowned. "What, like... like I turn him against himself… emotionally, or-...?"

Loki hissed and finally gave up his delicacy. "No, Thor. Like you crawl up into his asshole."

"_What_?"

"When you erupt back into your normal size there, he'll be blown to shreds," Loki explained. "It would work. And it's better than the assignment _you _gave _me _on Asgard, so don't tell me it's not fair."

* * *

**TBC.**

** I did warn that there's a hint of eau du crack here. But don't worry, it doesn't get any crackier. One or two parts left. Let me know what you think!**


	5. Chapter 5

Thor looked around at the vast expanse of open, beautiful land and water. "This," he said. "This is it. New Asgard stands here."

"Fine." His past self shrugged. "Seems like it will do." He paced restlessly. "Did you really just sit here for five years and do nothing?"

"I didn't do _nothing_," Thor corrected. "I was very busy. I was busy being who I am." He tried not to allow his past self's eye-roll to offend him. "It's all right, I've been there," he said. "Burning with the constant struggle to be all the things that Odin wanted and my people needed and that I thought I should be. But then I took a break, and realized it's much simpler, much _better,_ to not have to be those things." He smiled indulgently, as if to a small child. "You'll learn."

Loki was standing close by his side. "Will he, though?" he murmured. "It was unimaginable defeat and tragedy that brought you to that place – something we hope that this Thor will never know."

Thor gave him a Look. "He _better _never know it. Not after what I sacrificed to ensure that it never happens."

"Don't be so dramatic."

"I. Climbed. Up. His. Ass." Thor tried not to remember it. "The rest of you got to fight honorably, while I had to, to, to sodomize evil. It's not funny."

"Yes, it is." Loki's smile was small and nasty. "For the rest of us. Just not for you. But don't worry." He reached out and patted Thor on his shoulder. "Once we get to the future, nobody will ever know you did it. Well… nobody except me. Hopefully I won't tell anyone."

"_Loki._" He could foresee an endless stream of innuendos and blackmail. It was_ exhausting._ "Look… why don't you just stay here?" he suggested. "It's a beautiful place, and with Thanos dead, you can actually live in peace. At least until something else goes wrong on this planet." He waved that away as quickly as possible. "In the meantime you can help your people build and heal. Where I come from, all there is to look forward to is roaming around the cold blackness of space, in a scarred universe."

Loki was quiet. "They're not my people, Thor," he said at last. "For the past few years I've been watching from behind a one-way glass as they pitied and fetishized me, and I'll admit it was fun, but I can't walk among them now. I need to go." Then he laughed. "And I think the cold blackness of space will suit me better than this beauty anyway."

Thor watched the Asgardians roaming around the site, planning out where this or that building might stand. "Should we stay awhile and help them build, at least?" he asked. "I already know where everything goes."

He saw, out of the corner of his eye, that Past-Thor had turned to exchange a glance with his brother. "What?" he asked them.

Loki answered. "Thor, if you're in the mood to build, why don't you just stay? Give your suit to Eyepatch over there, and let him return with me instead. If we're going to be struggling through the chaos of a scarred universe, brother… of the two of you, he seems a little better of a fit." He looked over at Past-Thor. "Don't you think?"

Past-Thor stood tall. "My father is dead and my realm destroyed – everything I've ever fought and worked for. But I still have fight in me, if that's what you're asking." He turned to Thor. "It's your choice."

If he gave up his suit, he would never be able to go back. But why would he want to? Asgard was here – Heimdall and Stark as well – and the universe was whole, unmarred by his failure. Here, his failure had never happened.

"Let's have lunch," he said, "And a couple of beers. And I'll think about it."

His past self and his brother nodded along. "Of course," Loki said, "Think about it. Take your time."

He'd be willing to bet that all three of them knew him well enough to know that he had already decided.

But after enough beers, he supposed… who knew. He might do anything. It didn't matter too much in the end, though. The sun would shine anyway.

* * *

**The End.**

But there's an epilog. So we can see WTF was Loki _really _thinking. Hoping to post it in the next day or two.

Thanks for coming along through time with me. Sorry there was crack. (Just be glad I didn't actually kill Thanos on-screen and make you read about it!).

Hope you enjoyed!


	6. Chapter 6

In the end Loki begged help of Banner. He _hated _to approach Banner for anything; even after months of helping Thor and his Avenger friends restore order to planets that had had their populations doubled overnight, Banner didn't seem to quite trust him.

And even though it had been over a decade since Banner had put him through the floor of Stark's tower hard enough to liberate his mind from the mind stone (and nearly liberate his breath from his body)… he still didn't quite trust Banner.

But this would be delicate. He needed to time his arrival to the minute and to the foot. If he arrived too early, he'd be walking into a battle. If he arrived too late, he'd find just the ruins of a destroyed ship, and Thor floating off through space alone.

Banner could help: he had actually been _there _for most of it, and he knew how to work the time machine with a precision that Loki could never hope to duplicate alone.

Fortunately, Banner seemed receptive.

"Look, I get it," he said. Patted Loki's shoulder with a massive green paw. "Seeing your own death, _understanding_ your own death, is a really powerful idea, okay. I want to help."

Clearly there was a _but._ He braced for it.

"But you're shady, Loki." Banner added at last, with a regretful smile. "I mean sorry, but that's kind of your trademark, right? So if I help you go back… and you… do something…?"

"What would I possibly do?"

Banner shrugged. "I don't know, man, but here you are. When you're supposed to be dead."

Loki stepped close. "That's right," he said, "Here I am." He spun around, showing off his haircut, his clothes. "I'm alive and I like it that way. Why would I cause any trouble for myself or you or anything about this reality?"

Banner still shook his head.

"I can give you my word, if that means anything?"

Banner laughed sadly. "Sorry. No offense."

"None taken." Lie. "Look… you can come _with _me if you want," he suggested. "I honestly just want to see what happens, and come back. I swear I will not touch anything, or speak to anyone, or do _anything other than look._ Just look. I swear it."

"I am _not _going back to that ship."

Understandable. "All right, well. _I_ need to." Banner was still. "Please. I need to know."

* * *

He arrived at the right time, and in the right place: behind the remains of a snarl of piping, by a broken steam-pipe whose billowing clouds masked any _poof _of arrival. He peeked out.

His past self was a prisoner of Thanos's lackeys-…

_And could see him._ Did a double-take. Damn him for his sharp eyes.

Loki put a finger to his lips. His past self frowned. Nodded. Wiped his expression clean, and stopped staring at him.

_Maybe he thought he was imagining it, _Loki thought… but no. His past self raised a hand and curled his fingers, quick and halfway – a hint of his old time-travel gesture. Who knew what chaos would ensue if he didn't respond – what if his past self drew everyone's attention to him? – so Loki shifted into the light briefly and performed the second half of the sign, before fading back into the shadows, drawing spells of concealment over himself as he did. _Nothing to see here._

He was annoyed: now that his past self had seen someone dropping in from the future he'd behave differently, and Loki would never know what had really happened.

"The Tesseract, or your brother's head," Thanos was saying. "I assume you have a preference?"

His past self glanced at him as if to check his opinion. He shook his head, meaning _don't look at me_, but apparently the gesture was misunderstood. "Oh, I do. Kill away."

_No._ Thor had told him that he'd _agreed _to give up the Tesseract! As he absolutely should have; if his past self didn't capitulate soon they were all going to watch Thor murdered. He shook his head frantically, made a cutting gesture across his own throat. _Stop this._

His past self didn't really need the hint; he capitulated on his own. "All right_ stop_!"

Loki ducked back behind the pipes and tried to regroup. This was awful. Not only was he watching Thanos brutalize his ship and his brother and himself, but now, his past self was apparently looking to him for guidance on what to do.

_Don't ask me. I have no idea. _He stayed hidden, listening to his past self try and tip Thor off that they had a time traveler, and then set up a distraction so that the Hulk could attack. It was pretty decent delivery. Good on him.

But the Hulk failed, and Thanos prevailed, and soon Heimdall was dead and Banner gone and Thor immobilized. Now he was flying blind – Banner had recollected the early parts of the scene with scientific precision, but this last bit he had gotten only from a washed-up, drunken version of Thor who was digging into trauma-tinged memories more than five years old. _His _Thor had never seen this day, and could tell him nothing.

So he had no idea what was going to happen. He crept around the edges of the destroyed chamber to try and get a closer look-

And tripped over himself. His past self, flung away and forgotten, watching from the sidelines.

They stared at each other.

"Are you alone?" his past self breathed – less than a whisper.

He nodded. What else was he supposed to do?

"Stop waiting for the perfect chance; we're out of time," his past self breathed, quickly. So quickly there was no time to argue with him. "He just took his armor off. I'll distract him again. Your knives, his back. Don't miss."

And then he was gone, stepping out into the room, volunteering to lead Thanos's people down to earth. Seeking Thanos's attention - and then drawing a knife to _require_ it.

When Bearded Thor had first told him that he'd tried to just stab Thanos in the face, from the front, he'd had _no idea _what he could have been thinking.

Now he knew. Now he knew how he'd guessed they would time travel, and why he'd been so stupid as to engage Thanos hand to hand.

This was his fault. His fault for being here, his fault for causing himself to take stupid actions, his own damn fault for not making it out alive. _I'm sorry._

His past self, frozen and seized, was looking to him for help, but if he revealed himself there was no guarantee that his suit would survive a fight intact, no guarantee that he'd get a chance to use the wristwatch to escape. He couldn't risk it. _I'm so sorry._ Shaking his head. He pointed to himself and to his eyes. _I'm only here to watch_.

Thanos was lifting by the neck, as Thor had said. He wanted to duck down and hide again, but his past self had locked gaze with him and he couldn't bring himself to break it. _Help me. Help. I need help. _He could see it in his eyes – he _never _begged, but he was begging now – and still he did nothing. The depth of the betrayal was unfathomable._ What must I think of me? _

His past self used its last words to answer that question for him: "You will never be a god." He heard his own neck break.

So apparently he'd died begging for help that never came, died abandoned, died hating himself. There: now he knew. His hands were shaking almost too much to operate the wristwatch. He got it done just before the ship disintegrated. Swore he wouldn't time-travel again.

* * *

**The End.**

**There we go. Sorry it's a bummer! Envision brainy!Hulk giving him a big green hug when he returns to the future, if that helps.**

**Let me know what you thought of this. Again: thanks for reading, and SORRY!**


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